Monday, July 12, 2010

Giro Donne - what really happened in stage 10



So I have just seen the stage report from yesterday's stage 10. It was so hilarious I had to share it. Check out this report from CJ Farquharson (http://www.womenscycling.net/) who was one of the moto photographers following the race. CJ's Italian is much better than mine and she managed to work out what the circus was all about:

What was expected to be a procession, turned out to be a race of immense activity and attacks. A number of teams wanted to win the final stage and launched attack after attack to try to break up the race and gain an advantage. Evelyn Stevens (HTC Columbia) was the most successful of the breaks. Stevens gained almost one minute advantage before being pulled back in. It was as the race started the last 10km that it got really interesting. The roundabout just before the 10km to go sign was incorrectly marked and sent the leading Police, cars and eventually the whole peloton ahead instead of left. While the race headed towards a housing estate and dead end, Lisa Jacobs (Australia) and Lusia Tamaini (ASC Chirio Forna D' Asolo) who had dropped back to get support from their team cars, correctly turned left and headed fore the finish.
There was a complete panic from the police and organisers to get the race back on track and the two lone riders were stopped before they could reach the finish. They were held and waited for the leading group to go by before joining the back of the peloton.

And this:

Photo courtesy cyclingnews.com

The peloton detoured from the parcours with around 10 km to go. Lisa Jacobs (Australia) and Irene Falorni (Vaiono) were behind the main group when they took the wrong turn and became the leaders on the road. With spirit of fair play, the pair stopped and took their rightful position despite technically being permitted to continue.

We've all had a good laugh here imagining the scene if the police had let us ride on. We were a good 10 minutes ahead of the bunch and even pedalling squares we probably would have won had we kept riding.
CJ is also being very generous in her report - she is right that we would have waited anyway, but I have to admit I had no idea what was going on at the time. But Macca, look, I got in a breakaway!

3 comments:

  1. It would've been like that stage in Tour de l'Aude, where poor Annemiek Van Vleuten and Liesbet de Vicht got sent the wrong way, and rode on thinking they were in the lead, so corssed the line all victory salutes and happiness, not knowing Katheryn Mattis from Team USA had got ahead of them while they were turned round.... You could've snuck a stage win too!

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